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Had a fun little sighting today, kinda comes in two parts, but it's worth a laugh.
I've been working with a rendering program to complete a project for a game company I'm currently working for. Pretty detailed program, but I've got it loaded on my laptop, so most days I can head up to the mall or library, or some other place and do a bit of work. Gets me out of the house at least.
Today, I decided to head over to the local library. Plunking down in a nice comfortable place, I proceed to get to work, digging through architecture manuals, history books, pretty much every thing I need to get my research and thus job done. About half way through one project part, I stopped and stared at the program a moment. Thinking out loud, I muttered softly a "Ok, that looks cool...though I don't know how I did it." (which I didn't. Later figured out it was a tex resolution and the normals map, but that's not the point.) S, a good friend of mine who also uses the program was there, so we began talking about this. During this time a boy walked up and listened some before actually asking me a rather well thought out question about what I was doing. He was polite about it, so I told him. He then asked me what program I used, to which I replied "Autodesk 3DS." (Aka 3DS Max)
That seemed to settle him, and he wandered off. A good five or six minutes later he comes back by, mother in tow. She's all nice, smiling at me as she in turn asks me about what I'm doing, I repeat what I told the boy, and she asks me about the program. I think the conversation was as follows.
L: My son said that was a really neat program you were using and wondered if he could try it.
R: Well, yeah, I think there's a couple schools that teach it, but it's pretty pricey. Couple hundred a course I think.
L: Oh. Well why don't you just, you know, copy him your version? I mean it's just a program right?
R: Can't do that ma'am. First, he'd not know hide nor hair of what to do with it, and second it wouldn't be legal.
L: Not legal? It's just a simple computer program!
R: Still not doing miss. I paid too much for this (lie. Was a gift from the company but not telling her that.) to hand out copies.
At this point, she started digging around in her purse, pulling out her checkbook.
Rather snobbishly she says
L: Well, since you won't give it, here, I'll pay you what it's worth. What is it? Thirty fourty?
R: Try three.
L: Three dollars? That's awfully cheap.
R: Three...thousand. Give or take a hundred.
She went white as a sheet. The boy's jaw dropped too, but since she wanted to buy one I was nice enough to give her the address of the company. Of course this probably made me seem like one uber ass to her, not that I've ever cared.
Hmm....I wonder if she actually buys one if I can get a commission on the sale.
*Note: 3DS currently sells for around 4 grand retail with each copy given to a company registered. Mine is registered, so I couldn't exactly copy and give it to her. She probably could have gotten a demo free, and I think they're working on a update to "Gmax" which is the free version of the program.
I've been working with a rendering program to complete a project for a game company I'm currently working for. Pretty detailed program, but I've got it loaded on my laptop, so most days I can head up to the mall or library, or some other place and do a bit of work. Gets me out of the house at least.
Today, I decided to head over to the local library. Plunking down in a nice comfortable place, I proceed to get to work, digging through architecture manuals, history books, pretty much every thing I need to get my research and thus job done. About half way through one project part, I stopped and stared at the program a moment. Thinking out loud, I muttered softly a "Ok, that looks cool...though I don't know how I did it." (which I didn't. Later figured out it was a tex resolution and the normals map, but that's not the point.) S, a good friend of mine who also uses the program was there, so we began talking about this. During this time a boy walked up and listened some before actually asking me a rather well thought out question about what I was doing. He was polite about it, so I told him. He then asked me what program I used, to which I replied "Autodesk 3DS." (Aka 3DS Max)
That seemed to settle him, and he wandered off. A good five or six minutes later he comes back by, mother in tow. She's all nice, smiling at me as she in turn asks me about what I'm doing, I repeat what I told the boy, and she asks me about the program. I think the conversation was as follows.
L: My son said that was a really neat program you were using and wondered if he could try it.
R: Well, yeah, I think there's a couple schools that teach it, but it's pretty pricey. Couple hundred a course I think.
L: Oh. Well why don't you just, you know, copy him your version? I mean it's just a program right?
R: Can't do that ma'am. First, he'd not know hide nor hair of what to do with it, and second it wouldn't be legal.
L: Not legal? It's just a simple computer program!
R: Still not doing miss. I paid too much for this (lie. Was a gift from the company but not telling her that.) to hand out copies.
At this point, she started digging around in her purse, pulling out her checkbook.
Rather snobbishly she says
L: Well, since you won't give it, here, I'll pay you what it's worth. What is it? Thirty fourty?
R: Try three.
L: Three dollars? That's awfully cheap.
R: Three...thousand. Give or take a hundred.
She went white as a sheet. The boy's jaw dropped too, but since she wanted to buy one I was nice enough to give her the address of the company. Of course this probably made me seem like one uber ass to her, not that I've ever cared.
Hmm....I wonder if she actually buys one if I can get a commission on the sale.
*Note: 3DS currently sells for around 4 grand retail with each copy given to a company registered. Mine is registered, so I couldn't exactly copy and give it to her. She probably could have gotten a demo free, and I think they're working on a update to "Gmax" which is the free version of the program.
I AM the evil bastard!
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